Prolog
The Great Mother paused, for the first time in memory questioning her decision. True, it was far from the first time she had "gone rounds" with herself, but this time, rather than bring an alternative to argue, she had simply raged that she was making a mistake by "playing with these lives and screwing with 616 to no end." The mother sighed. She had been given an endless supply of proof that, once she gave up her duty as the Great Mother Askani to become a time/reality jumper, she would not only forget a great many of the decisions and orders she had had to make but would become unprofessionally attached to a single version of Earth: 616. Once she had reclaimed her identity as Rachel Grey-Summers she would for an as yet unknown reason become convinced that it was the correct, if not only path to the future they strived for.
The aged woman let her head fall forward, so that her brow rested on a seemingly frail hand with her elbow propped on the arm of her chair, still uncertain whether or not she should give the command. She sighed again, seeing no alternative, and sent the apprentice standing by the door to bring the Time Master. The man who followed the young girl looked ancient in comparison, as she was sure she did, and walked stooped nearly in half leaning heavily on the crooked walking stick clutched in both hands. His wrinkles were etched deeply, his steps halting and jerky, but his blue eyes were still clear and bright and his hands sturdy. It was he who was charged with the care and up-keep of the time and reality machines. He bowed deeply to her, an impressive feat seeing as he was already so bent with age, his right arm crossing his chest to rest on his left shoulder the right hand still clutching the walking stick.
"You summoned me?" The questing was pointless, but protocol demanded it. A slight wave of her hand and the apprentice came forward to take a small disk, the size and shape of a dime, from the table beside the Great Mother's chair and give it to the Time Master.
"Bring him to me asleep." She commanded gently, her voice just loud enough to reach the man and no louder. "Bring him to my chambers. Be discrete, and it is imperative that you do not wake him. Give me ten minutes to give him the information that he needs and then be ready to transport him to the second set of coordinates." She dismissed him with a wave of her hand and he bowed once again, even lower than the first time and she was, for a moment, afraid he would fall forward on his face, before turning and leaving the audience hall.
The Great Mother dismissed the apprentice and stood, walking almost in a glide to her chambers to await the arrival of her expected guest. She took the pillows from her bed, arranged them neatly in a kind of nest on the floor, turned off the glaring lights, lit the oil lamps, set incense in the holders around the room and brought up the sound of a stream trickling over smooth rocks in its bed. All these preparations were for feeding a sleeping man information he would retain without knowing where he got it. She propped the door open and sat cross-legged on a beanbag chair against the far wall, closing her eyes to ponder what exactly she was going to tell him. Time flew and at the same time crawled as she waited for the transfer to be made and her guest to arrive. Finally the sound of light steps echoing down the marble hall penetrated her shallow meditation and she opened her eyes in time to see her guest levitated into the room by one of the telekinetic sisters.
"Will you be needing any assistance?" The question was barely a breath; the Mother simply shook her head. The low ranking sister bowed deeply as the Time Master had done and exited, closing the door behind her.
The Great Mother looked down at the sleeping man and smiled a little. Had he woken up his eyes would have given away the fact that he was one of the great heroes that people swore by and told stories about. Even at her age, she remembered this man from her childhood, before she had come to the Askani. He had always been good for a laugh or a playmate if he wasn't too busy. She sighed at the memories of a time long past and sank to her knees beside the "nest".
She pitched her voice to a low murmur and spoke smoothly and fluidly. "I know this will be disorienting and you will hate me when you discover that I was the one that did this to you but, I assure you, it is necessary. You must win her heart, but to do that you must start in the place where she is isolated, alone, and deprived of all but a single friend. Convince that friend of who you are for she will be an ally that you cannot afford to be without. The circumstances of their presence in the reality you are about to enter are far too complicated to attempt to explain, but it is where you must start. Gain the girl's trust." She slipped a brief image of the girl into his dream. "And then her heart. You need each other and time needs the two of you. You will have all you require: money, identity, all the basics required by law. The last gift I can give you is the gift of sight, you will understand what I mean when it is used even without your knowledge. It will aid you in finding the girl and her friend, whom you already know though, you will be surprised at who it is. Gods speed and good luck, more than you know rests on you and what happens with this mission, even if you do go to it unwillingly." She leaned forward to gently kiss his forehead, effectively cementing the "orders" in place as she slipped a folded piece of paper into his pocket. The Sister who had dropped him off, came to take him back to the Time Master for his second transportation through time and reality to a world he would never forgive her for sending him to. Even she was uncertain what would happen to him in a reality that was a mundane as could be.
Please reveiw. Any comments welcome.